OpenGov - Open Government Brainstorm

The secret intelligence world spends $65 billion to $75 billion (and perhaps more) per year stealing the 10-20% they care about, to provide the President, their only "real" customer, with 4% of what he needs to know. They refuse to embrace Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), calling it "Open Sores," and are totally irresponsible in failing to provide decision support to every Cabinet Department, every Agency, and every member of Congress.

Below are some fundamental things that could be done to dramatically enhance "decision support" across the entire government and across the Nation:

Intelligence Reform—Global Understanding, State & Local Security

“Nothing in the existing or planned Federal budget makes America any safer!

When both the incumbent President and the incumbent Director of Central Intelligence persist in telling America that 9-11 was not an intelligence failure, they demonstrate nothing more than their ignorance and their lack of respect for the common sense of the people. Below are specific intelligence reforms I want to see championed by a candidate and team of substance, because how America understands the rest of the world and its dangers really matters to the future security and prosperity for many generations:

1) National Security Act of 2005. Will provide for the revitalization of national intelligence and counterintelligence in the context of a “Smart Nation” in which every element of government—non-secret as well as secret—is wired together so we can collect the dots, connect the dots, and never again drop the ball. Within this Act should be the following specific reforms:

a) Restructuring of the Presidential staff to create four Director-Generals for Policy, Strategy, Intelligence, and Research. America has no serious strategy for its future, intelligence is not impacting on policy or strategy, and government research (as well as taxation policies) are retarding rather than advancing the private sector’s ability to be innovative.

b) Creation of a consolidated National Foreign Intelligence Program that gives the Director-General for Intelligence control over the three technical intelligence agencies now within the defense department, while earmarking 50% of the program in peace, 85% in war, for defense needs.

c) Elevation of the National Intelligence Council to the Office of the President, where it can do a better job of harnessing the distributed intelligence of the entire Nation, while also working more closely with the Cabinet departments.

d) Establishment of the Global Knowledge Foundation, a $1.5 billion a year “.org” dedicated to helping all elements of the government as well as the private sector gain better access to open sources of information in all languages of the world—80% of what we need for 5% of the cost of secrets. Includes creation of a “virtual national intelligence community” of leading experts on everything who do not want top secret clearances, and Digital Marshall Plan for Third World.

e) National Analysis Agency. Redirection (with downsizing) of the Central Intelligence Agency toward strategic analysis, while restoring the responsibilities and capabilities of the individual Cabinet departments to do coherent strategic and tactical intelligence analysis.

f) National Processing Agency. Redirection (with downsizing) of the National Security Agency to leverage its extraordinary capabilities in processing, such that it can “make sense” of all non-secret as well as secret information needed to keep America safe while improving government decision-support over-all (e.g. visualization of complex non-secret databases).

g) National Collection Agency. Redirection (with downsizing) of the National Reconnaissance Office to become an “all-source” technical collection agency able to both create multiple forms of technical collection platforms, while avoiding competition among different “pipes.”

h) Clandestine Service Agency. Coincident with a gradual decommissioning of the existing clandestine service that is not clandestine at all, create a completely new but very narrowly-focused capability for in extremis requirements that is characterized by very deep non-official cover, multi-national career personnel, and the ability to manage both unilateral and multi-lateral clandestine penetrations of both state and non-state actors threatening the Nation.

i) Homeland Security Intelligence Program. Redirect 20% of the existing $38 billion per year from wasteful earmarked expenditures on emergency responder and “hard-wired” counter-terrorism capabilities that are not agile, toward the establishment of state & local Community Intelligence Centers and networks—we must teach our localities to fish for sharks, don’t try to fish for them.